


Play Our Song

by Major



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Crushes, Humor, Late at Night, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 22:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/pseuds/Major
Summary: Schmitt's car breaks down, and Nico comes to the rescue.





	Play Our Song

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after 15x05 'Everyday Angel'. Last night's episode was so good, I loved it. I'm so invested in these two. Had to write more.

Headlights swept over the road, and Schmitt was too jumpy and relieved to feel as embarrassed as he probably should have been.  Etiquette dictated that he jump out of the car and lavish his rescuer with gratitude before offering to help change the tire, but there was a fair amount of fear involved that kept him from conforming to that social norm.  Instead, he waited inside the car not only until the other car parked behind him but until the driver got out and cleared the blinding headlights enough to reveal that it was actually help and not an opportunistic serial killer that was thrilled to find easy prey on the side of the road.

Schmitt rolled the window down and smiled up at his knight in shining hoodie.

“Hi, Nico.”

“Hey.”  He leaned down, arms braced at the window.  That familiar thump kicked into overdrive at the proximity.  For some reason, he thought he’d be in a suit.  His quest to see Nico in dapper mode pressed on.

“Thanks for coming out.”  His plan to make sure he arrived early to the medical conference by renting a car failed spectacularly when he ran over something that caused a small explosion in his back tire and forced him to coast off the side of the road.

“No problem.  I’ve got the jack.”

“Great.  Yeah.  Let’s change a tire!”  It came out way too enthusiastic, and he was glad the night was dark enough to camouflage his blush as he pushed the door open and got out.  “Sorry for calling you for this.  You shouldn’t have had to leave to come get me out of a jam.”

He’d considered calling AAA but figured he’d be late to the event if he lingered, which would have made it difficult to impress his colleagues (not any one person in particular, of course…) with his dedication to his career.  The rental company’s standard ETA listed on their website hadn’t left him with much hope either.

Helm wasn’t answering her phone; probably doing some light stalking of Dr. Grey before the lecture.  Parker was working that night.  His mom was already asleep, because she wasn’t picking up.  Schmitt didn’t have a whole lot of people he could count on to bust him out of a tight spot.  He was a little bit shocked that Nico had answered his call and more shocked that he’d readily agreed to drive out and help.

“I don’t mind,” Nico said.

“Oh.  Well.  I appreciate it.”

Nico tossed him a quick half-smile and went to examine the damage on the back tire.  He whistled.  “Yeah, that’s trashed.  What did you run over?”

“A land mine?” Schmitt joked.  That was what it sounded like when the tire blew.  His heart normally only beat that fast when Nico was around.

The chuckle he got felt like a merit badge.  Amuse Someone Gorgeous: checked off the list.  Next challenge: Attract Someone Gorgeous.  A bit harder.

“Schmitt,” Nico said, eyebrow cocked.  That was definitely a second or third call of his name.  Oops.  He really needed to concentrate on concentrating when he was in the dangerous position of being near someone with the ability to turn his insides to jelly by… existing too closely.

“Hm?”

“Where’s the spare?”

“Oh!”  Right.  He was there to change the tire, not watch Schmitt inadvertently do his best impression of Helm trailing after Dr. Grey, lovesick and hopeless.  “Uh, the trunk.  I’ll get it.”

Only, when he got it open, the flood of Nico’s headlights exposed something that he should have noticed when he glanced back there earlier to confirm there was a spare.  There was a tire, alright.  But it was pretty obviously shredded on one side from its own trek over glass or Krueger’s corpse.  The one he’d just blown was obviously the previous spare, and the rental company hadn’t gotten around to changing it out with a new one.

Great.  Just fantastic.

Embarrassment rushed through him.  He’d had Nico drive all the way out to help him and didn’t even have what they needed.  The fact that he couldn’t find a jack in the car should have tipped him off that the company he’d gone to wasn’t especially concerned about their renters becoming stranded.  On the way to a big medical conference.  Which would have been interesting to Schmitt but was actually important for Nico to attend.

Guilt made him wince.  “I’m really sorry.  I should have checked closer!  It was—  I shouldn’t have even called you!  I should have sat here and waited for a killer to drive by and stab me in the face.”

Nico didn’t look as upset as Schmitt was about the mistake.  “Aw, come on.  I like that face.  Make him stab you somewhere else.”

The thumping got worse—better? it really was an exercise in happy pain around him—and he had to look at the road to ensure whatever color his cheeks were betraying him with wasn’t visible to Nico.

“I’ll give you a ride to the con,” Nico said and pat Schmitt’s arm.  “You can call the rental agency from there.  They can deal with it.  It’s on them for not equipping their car right.”

He must have seen Schmitt’s hesitation to leave the car out there alone, unsure of where liability would fall if it got stolen or stripped while it sat there unattended.  Nico’s hand returned to his arm, and this time it lingered, fingers squeezing gently.

“Come on, this is cutting edge medicine.  You don’t want to miss it.  They’ll notice if we’re creeping in late.  Besides, I reserved two seats for us up front.”

That was more of a surprise than the shredded tire.  “You did?”

“Yeah.”

Schmitt shouldn’t push.  He’d read the situation between them wrong before already.  Asking someone to hang out at a bar didn’t necessarily mean that the super hot guy meant for it to be a date, and saving a seat for him at a work function definitely didn’t mean that.  Probably.  He wished Helm was there to tell him what was happening.  Though, she was wrong before, and one socially awkward nerd could only survive so many embarrassments before something broke and required surgical repairs.

He trailed after Nico to his car but couldn’t hold the question back.  “Why?”

Nico turned, confused.  “Because we’ll hear better up there.”

Schmitt jumped (unnoticed, thankfully) as Nico closed the trunk of his car after tossing the unused jack back in, on edge in the dark night after the car broke down and, stranded, the road felt a heck of a lot more likely to house creepy things.  With teeth and bad intentions.

“No, I mean why did you save me a seat?”

Nico stood in front of him, close enough that Schmitt had to tilt his head a little to meet his gaze.

“So we could sit together.”

There were crickets or cicadas nearby—he never learned the difference—and his fear of the roadside night melted into something else, something warmer that applied pressure to the gas pedal on that thumping problem he had that wasn’t actually a problem.  Nico saved him a seat.  Nico wanted to sit with him.

“Oh.”  He forcibly told his jaw to raise and his mouth to shut.   _Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask._  He asked, “How come?”

Nico shrugged, and it was a hell of a thing to shrug off when Schmitt felt like it was better categorized somewhere near Oncoming Stroke.

“I like spending time with you,” he said like it was as easy as that, and maybe for him it was.

For Schmitt, it was more like standing on tracks and feeling the rumble of an approaching train beneath his feet—deciding not to move.

“I want to spend more time with you,” he added.

Was Nico closer?  He felt closer, but Schmitt lost time somewhere between forgetting how to talk and the pull of Nico’s eyes meeting his, drawing him in.

“You good with that?”

Was he?  ‘Good’ was certainly a word that described what he was with the half-breath of space between them and the happy new knowledge that Nico framed in moonlight was somehow even more generous to beholders than the hospital’s fluorescents.

“I’m… Yeah.  I’m good with that.”

His skin buzzed where Nico wasn’t touching him.  It wasn’t just attraction.  It was anticipation.  This thing between them wasn’t a question but a place in time, one that Schmitt hadn’t reached yet but could see narrowly in the distance, a mirage beneath the moonlight down the road.

He couldn’t have been reading the room (the road, the _them_ ) that wrong, could he?

Headlights streamed down the turn in the street as another car drove by and broke through the stillness between them.  Nico finally let go of his arm and stepped back.

“Come on,” Nico murmured, voice just a tad lower, with eyes that gleamed in the passing light, a little darker than before.  “You ready?”

Nico reached out as he passed him to get to the driver’s seat and briefly caught his hand, a gentle pressure that sent a happy rush through the buzz embracing Schmitt.  He adjusted his glasses and didn’t fight the smile breaking through his nerves as he rounded the car to climb in with him.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said as he shut the door after him and looked across at Nico—warm and present and inevitable—and thanked whatever sharp objects had run him off the road.  It turned out, he thought as Nico flipped the radio on and got them moving, that he liked the new course he was on.


End file.
